US military in Iraq

Photo: This child was orphaned by US troops in January 2005. Her photo was seen around the world, right next to the picture of bush being re-inaugurated. Photo taken from Left I on the News blog, story about this child is here. This happened in Tal Afar, but incidents similar to this have happened all over Iraq.

This story came from a NY newspaper called the Times Union:

Chaplain's duty is parish's calling

An Army chaplain deployed to Iraq is expanding his mission beyond the spiritual needs of soldiers. His target: the children of Mosul. It's called Project Iraqi Children. The Rev. Stanley Jasiurkowski is working with his old parish, Blessed Virgin Mary of Czestochowa in Colonie, to collect basic necessities for kids in Iraq's second-largest city.

……."It is heartbreaking when you see 5- or 6-year-old children run outside to play with their new soccer balls in the sewage and filth of the city without any shoes," Jasiurkowski wrote. "I know that there is no parent among us who would ever let their children play in such an environment at all, much less without attending to their most basic clothing and sanitary needs."

……. The destitution of Iraq's children aroused his compassion. The problems, he wrote in a recent letter to the parish, are "beyond the power of their parents to fix."

The parishioners at this church pitched in to help out. They set up a box for donations. They are holding a rummage sale to pay for shipping costs. This chaplain is right in that the problems are beyond the power of Iraqi parents to fix – but he fails to note that the problems stem from the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. These people were not that bad off under Saddam. They did not have sewage in the streets, because the sewer pipes had not been blown to hell by bomb dropped from the air. This article ends with this statement:

Jasiurkowski's message registered with parishioners like Mary Ann Willey of Colonie. She lingered after Mass Sunday with a small group of church members who sat down over coffee to discuss Project Iraqi Children. "If we can teach the children that we're ... a giving country," she said, "maybe they will think kindly of America."

I wrote a letter to the editor to this paper on December 31, 2007. They did not contact me about publishing the letter, and since they are not using it, I will publish it here on my blog.

I read the report of the good people of the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Czestochowa in Colonie and their attempts to raise needed supplies for the children of Mosul, Iraq. The chaplain's letter to them told them that the problems of Mosul were "beyond the power of their parents to fix." While that is certainly true, it did not address where all those problems came from. They came from the US invasion and occupation of that country.

I was appalled to read one women's comment that "If we can teach the children that we're ... a giving country," she said, "maybe they will think kindly of America." Do you really think that a child will forget about his grandfather being shot by US troops or a lost unborn baby brother
because of shoes and soccer balls?

Do you really think that this will inspire them to "think kindly" of America? One teenaged Iraqi blogger in Mosul said recently that Iraq was no longer her country. Reading her blog, and the blog of other young Iraqis in Mosul is like reading Anne Frank in real time. One hopes the outcome is better, but that is all it is - a hope.

Children are dying from simple things like pneumonia and diarrhea and malnutrition in Mosul. They were dying from cholera this past summer. The rate of child death is much higher than it was under Saddam. I would like to suggest that the good people of the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Czestochowa in Colonie ask themselves why the children of Mosul are in the condition they are in, and what they can do about those conditions beyond giving them shoes, clothes or soccer balls. I suppose if they really get into the business of why there are such poor, why the infrastructure of Mosul is in such bad shape after five years of US occupation, and why children are dying of simple diseases and lack of food, they would get the same answers that the rebel Jesus got.

It amazes me that there are Americans who think that clothes, shoes, soccer balls and other charities will cause people to think we are a kind and giving nation after we bomb country after country, kill innocent people by the hundreds of thousands, ruin the lives of millions, and never say we are sorry.

I think it is admirable that the people of this church want to help out, but they seriously need to look a lot deeper at what their country is doing, and how they are contributing to the vast destruction that the US military is ordered to visit on countries that never hurt us at all.

I think it is admirable that some people in our military want to help out, and even more admirable that they want to start up jobs programs or support Iraqi business – THAT is the true route to prosperity, but it can only happen after the US stops it’s military and political and economic interventions that do not serve the interest of the foreign country. I would also like to point out that reconstruction is the job of the STATE department, not the DEFENSE department. It is both dangerous and stupid to have the US military serve that function – dangerous to our troops and dangerous to the civilians in the countries that they occupy.

It is amazing that some of our military have figures out that there is “no military solution” and that “we can’t shoot our way out of this” and that they have stepped up (above is just one small example) to try to find economic and political solutions. And that is why things have calmed down in Iraq – they US military is paying salaries to a lot of former insurgents. And the insurgents can now feed their families again, and stopped fighting (there are other factors at work, too, but this is a major one).

Now – what happens when the US military STOPS paying them?

For the record, paying off the Iraqis not to fight (sometimes known as bribery) is way cheaper than continuing the war and occupation. However, the multi-national defense industries DON’T MAKE ANY MONEY THIS WAY, so this is not going to be a permanent plan – it totally undermines the only reason for making war in the first place.